For decades, Singaporeans could walk into a post office, buy stamps and perhaps start a collection of their own.
Today, that world is disappearing.
At the heart of Singapore’s shrinking stamp-collecting scene is 81-year-old Tan Chun Lim, the owner of CS Philatelic Agency at Peninsula Shopping Centre — a business he has built around a passion that began when he was just 11.
With roughly 70 years of collecting and dealing behind him, Tan is now believed to run Singapore’s last “pure stamp shop”, according to his account to CNA. Unlike retailers that have diversified into coins, antiques and other collectibles, his business remains focused primarily on stamps and philatelic material.
And his shop is anything but ordinary.
Inside are walls of stamps arranged by country, including issues from places that no longer exist, such as East Germany, Yugoslavia and the former Soviet Union. Drawers contain first-day covers dating back decades, while hundreds — possibly thousands — of folders and albums hold material ranging from Singapore stamps to highly specialised foreign issues.
For serious collectors, finding something rare is not simply a matter of browsing.
It can be a treasure hunt.
FROM SCHOOLBOY HOBBY TO A LIFELONG BUSINESS
Tan began collecting stamps at 11, when the hobby was far more mainstream in Singapore.
He recalled a time when children swapped stamps, maintained albums and competed in collecting clubs. Before the internet made information about the world instantly accessible, stamps offered young collectors a way to discover unfamiliar countries, cultures and histories.
By 14, Tan had already discovered that collecting and business could work together.
He bought packets containing hundreds of stamps, divided them into smaller lots and sold them to fellow students. The money went straight back into his collection.
The practice is known in Chinese as 以邮养邮 — essentially using proceeds from surplus stamps to finance further collecting.
That early entrepreneurial instinct would eventually become a career.
After finishing school in 1963, Tan joined Singapore’s Postal Services Department, where he worked for 18 years across different departments while studying accountancy at night.
He later ventured into other businesses, but stamps kept following him.
WHEN STAMP COLLECTING WAS A BOOMING BUSINESS
Singapore’s stamp market was not always niche.
Tan recalled the late 1980s and early 1990s as a particularly strong period. He attended the 1993 World Philatelic Exhibition in Bangkok, where he said demand was so intense that dealers struggled to keep up with buyers.
The frenzy reached Singapore during the 1995 World Philatelic Exhibition, which Tan remembers as being packed with collectors.
But the boom did not last.
According to his recollection, the market began turning around 1997, as mass interest in stamp collecting declined and the hobby became increasingly concentrated among serious collectors.
That shift reflects a broader change in how Singaporeans communicate.
Letters that once required physical postage can now be replaced by email, messaging apps and digital documents. Even the traditional process of buying stamps has changed as postal services modernise.
CNA reported in 2025 that SingPost’s once-common self-service automated machines, or SAM kiosks, had largely disappeared, another sign of how everyday postal habits have changed.
BUT THE STAMPS ARE NOT DISAPPEARING
The surprising part is that Singapore’s philatelic history remains remarkably rich.
According to SingPost, stamps were first issued for use in Singapore in 1854, when Indian stamps were overprinted for circulation in the Straits Settlements. After the Straits Settlements became a Crown Colony in 1867, its government took over stamp issuance.
After World War II, stamps bearing the name “Singapore” began appearing in 1948.
Following independence in 1965, stamps became an important way of documenting the country’s emerging national identity — from commemorating milestones to showcasing orchids, public housing, cultural festivals and national symbols.
In other words, a stamp collection can function as something much bigger than a hobby.
It can become a miniature archive of Singapore.
WHY AN OLD STAMP ISN’T NECESSARILY WORTH A FORTUNE
One of the biggest misconceptions about collecting is that age automatically equals value.
It doesn’t.
Tan told CNA that many old collections arriving at his shop are incomplete sets or collections of miscellaneous stamps. Their age alone does not make them valuable.
Condition, rarity, completeness, demand, printing characteristics and postal history can all influence a collector’s interest.
That is why specialised knowledge matters.
Tan said collectors sometimes approach him looking for extraordinarily specific items — including particular printing errors, cancellation dates or obscure issues.
In one example, a collector looking for a Japanese Occupation-era cancellation found a Carousell listing priced at S$3,000. Tan believed he could source a better example and eventually found one for the customer for S$1,000.
The lesson for anyone clearing an old family collection is simple: don’t assume every old stamp is valuable — but don’t assume it is worthless either.
THE STAMP COLLECTIONS PEOPLE LEAVE BEHIND
Today, Tan increasingly acquires collections from people clearing their parents’ or grandparents’ homes, or dealing with memorabilia after a family member dies.
His approach is unusually broad.
Rather than selecting only the most obviously desirable pieces, he says he will often take entire collections, sorting through them later and determining what can realistically be sold.
It is a service that goes beyond buying and selling.
For families trying to clear decades of accumulated belongings, finding someone willing to take an entire collection can solve a difficult problem.
And for Tan, it means another piece of philatelic history gets a chance to remain in circulation.
SINGAPORE IS STILL MAKING STAMPS — AND COLLECTORS ARE STILL WATCHING
Philately may no longer be the mass hobby it was in the 1950s, but Singapore’s stamp story is still being written.
In 2026, SingPost released a commemorative issue inspired by Singapore’s first independence-anniversary stamps from 1966. The new issue was designed to echo the historic artwork while reflecting how Singapore has changed over the past 61 years.
SingPost has also been actively promoting philately as a way of teaching younger generations about Singapore’s history. Its 2025/26 annual report highlighted programmes introducing students to heritage and storytelling through stamps, including a Young Philatelists School Programme and the “A Stamp, A Story” initiative.
That suggests the future of stamp collecting may not necessarily depend on recreating the mass popularity of the past.
Instead, it could become a more specialised form of heritage collecting.
THE BIGGEST QUESTION: WHO COMES NEXT?
For Tan, however, there is a more immediate problem.
He is already 81.
Despite offers from people interested in taking over the business over the years, no succession plan has materialised. His children are not interested in continuing the shop, and he acknowledges that he might have done things differently when they were younger.
Yet Tan remains remarkably matter-of-fact about the uncertainty.
His answer is essentially to keep going.
“Stamps are in my blood,” he told CNA.
And that may be the most poignant part of his story.
Because when a physical shop disappears, what disappears with it is not simply a place to buy stamps.
It can also mean the loss of specialised knowledge accumulated over generations — knowledge about obscure issues, printing errors, cancellations, postal history and the stories hidden inside collections that might otherwise end up forgotten.
Singapore’s stamps may be tiny.
But behind those perforated pieces of paper is a history spanning colonial rule, independence, nation-building and the transformation of everyday communication.
And for as long as Tan keeps opening the doors of his shop, that history still has somewhere to go.
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